


Donut Girl

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Eridan has too many feelings, F/M, Terezi has feelings for Eridan's alcohol, one joke at the expense of classy lesbians, pretending to have asthma does actually make you a douchebag, try as you might you can't shake the feeling that they used to play country music, two instances of Eridan using his hair to procrastinate, ‘Aradia's magic lipstick that never comes off’ should be a Cards Against Humanity card
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a year since Eridan ruined his relationship with his best friend. Instead of wallowing in a shallow puddle of misery, he decides to have a donut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Donut Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gloatingraccoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloatingraccoon/gifts).



> Wow this is the first thing I've written and completed in probably three years. First Homestuck work ever! Thanks to Giftstuck for facilitating that, dasteroad for the excellent prompt, and my beta MissTrouillefou for editing. I really hope you like this. And I really hope you're okay with it being way long... I always intend for my stories to be short and then 18,829 words later, here we are.
> 
> Shoutout to the donut shop I based this one off of! I go there every week to do homework, and everyone who works there is unfairly attractive and their donuts and hot chocolate are excellent as well.

It’s the one year anniversary of the worst day of your life. You decide you’re going to write a book.

 

An autobiography, to be exact. And it’s not as if this is a sudden whim, brought on by a desire to avoid reliving the trauma you went through a year ago today. Unintentionally, you take a moment out of planning your novel to remember. The short version is, you asked your best friend since infancy to be your girlfriend in front of a crowd of four hundred of your fans by singing her one of her favorite songs—which was a great and romantic idea, by anyone’s standards. But she ran off stage, crying. You followed her and things quickly degenerated into a screaming fight which ended with her telling you the asshole tech guy had actually been her boyfriend for the last five months. You the tech guy and punched him in the face, and were finally dragged off by your sweaty body guard so you wouldn’t be able to kill him for the grand finale of your life as you knew it.

 

Putting this unfortunate chain of events out of your mind is not actually your main goal, though. Merely a pleasant side effect. You’ve been considering this for a few months.

 

You’ve lead a pretty interesting life, you think. Anyone who’s ever become famous has to have struggled a bit. You struggled a lot. When you dropped out of college to play music with Feferi, your parents disowned you. Which was fine, because all you needed was each other. And you had each other. For a few more years, anyway, until she cut your heart out.

 

Maybe if you write about everything that ever happened to you, it’ll help you figure out where you went wrong.

 

You’re not sure why knowing exactly when and where you screwed up would help you now. You haven’t seen Feferi in a year. She kind of has a restraining order on you. She said you were stalking her, which you thought was unspeakably harsh and untrue. You had been friends for so long. How could that degenerate so quickly into something as ugly as ‘stalking’? You had tried to get in contact with her a couple of times to get some answers, because you weren’t satisfied with what she gave you in the dressing room at your last show, and yeah that had involved going to her apartment a little later than normal calling time one night. But you didn’t think you were overstepping your bounds. You felt she owed you more of an explanation than she gave, but apparently you were the only one.

 

This is the kind of thing you don’t want to be thinking about today, though. You won’t be thinking about that stuff until, like, chapter 18 or something. Sometime far in the future. It might even take you another year to get there, and maybe then you’ll be better prepared to deal with it.

 

But you’re determined not to let today be predictable. Predictably, you’d mope. A lot. Mostly because it would seem the fitting thing to do. Maybe you would even go get unholy drunk and punch some random bar-goer. You could make a tradition out of punching people. It’d be a good time.

 

Unpredictably, you’d write a book. You’ve needed another creative outlet since you stopped playing music. This will be a good thing for you.

  
You think you need to leave your house, though. You’ve been sitting at your kitchen table for an hour and a half putzing around on the internet. It’s easy to look at things other people have done; it’s harder to motivate yourself to do something of your own. After drawing heavily on your reserves of willpower, you close your laptop, stuff it into your satchel, and wander back into your room for some shoes.

 

As you get into your car, you realize you don’t have a destination in mind, and you sit in your dark garage with your brows furrowed for a minute or so thinking. You could go to Starbucks, but trying to write a book in a Starbucks feels like taking a picture of a Michelangelo painting with a shitty 2000s-era flip phone camera. If you’re going to do coffee, you should go somewhere that isn’t a chain.

 

You don’t know of any that aren’t chains off the top of your head, since you happen to really like Starbucks, but you figure if you just drive around long enough, you’ll probably find one. They can’t be that uncommon.

 

With that in mind, you start up your car and head out onto the road.

 

You drive in the general direction of ‘shopping centers’ and try to scan them for anything that looks like a vaguely writerly place to do some authoring.

 

You find a Coffee Bean and a Peet’s, but those are barely off Starbucks’ level. You don’t want to get too far away from your house in case you find some place great, so after the third Starbucks, you turn and go down a different direction.

 

In the third shopping center you pass on this street, as you’re beginning to get frustrated, something catches your eye—a sign that reads ‘Sunshine Donuts.’ You hesitate and drive past the entrance, but pull up to make a U-turn at the next light. You haven’t had a donut in years. The last time you went was probably with Feferi at one in the morning after a show.

 

The outside is unimpressive. It’s part of the same brick building that houses a bunch of other shops, including a video rental place that is somehow still open, in an age where video rental is obsolete; a UPS; and a Mexican restaurant. The sign is an electric one, so it looks odd in its unilluminated state during the day.

 

The inside, however, is much less grungy. It’s actually quite nice. The restaurant is kind of V-shaped. Along one leg of the V, there’s a row of four tables. Along the other leg and at the apex are the donuts and a bar wrapping around the walls of the establishment with more seating.

 

The girl behind the counter greets you cheerfully when you walk in. “Hi, welcome!” She’s got long, dark, wavy hair and bright red lip gloss that matches her cardigan and the belt around her black cotton dress.

 

You approach the counter slowly, taking in the wide selection of donuts, a little bit awed. Everything looks good. You realize you’re very hungry.

 

“What can I get for you?” the donut girl asks.

 

You’re trying to make a quick decision, so you look at the donuts and not her. “Um, I’m not ready yet. I haven’t had a donut in a long time.”

 

“You want a recommendation?” she offers.

 

You let your gaze slide from the buttermilk donuts onto her face. She smiles at you, the redness of her lips distracting you from answering briefly. They’re really nicely shaped. “Yeah, okay.”

 

“My favorites are these.” She points through the glass case to a row of large rectangular donuts sprinkled with white chocolate chips. “They’ve got melted chocolate chips in the middle.”

 

“Sounds good to me. Can I get a large coffee too? With room, please.” You pull your wallet out of your satchel.

 

“Sure thing.” She shakes open a paper bag and puts your donut in it. “By the way, has anyone ever told you, you look like that guy? Eridan Ampora? Except without the purple hair.” She gestures in a swirling motion around her forehead.

 

You smile to yourself. People have recognized you before. Quite a few times, actually. It happens less now that you and Feferi and broken up. People have been forgetting about you. But what they will remember was how you ended; messily, heartbreakingly. You’ll remember too, of course. Even if it becomes unimportant to your former fans, it will never be unimportant to you. But if they don’t bring it up, and most—well, some—are kind enough not to, it’s nice to talk to your old fans.

 

“Yeah, I am him,” you admit, pulling on your own charming smile. “I outgrew the purple.” You could use the enthusiasm of a fan today. She seems like the type who won’t pry for details on what Feferi’s doing now, not that you know them. You hope.

 

Her dark eyes go big, and her smile quirks in disbelief. “Really? Wow! Would it be weird of me to ask you to sign something?”

 

Your smile widens, showing off your perfect teeth. “Not at all.”

 

She looks around the counter for something to write on. She eventually tugs up some receipt paper from the register and tears it off, handing it to you along with a pen.

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Oh, it’s not for me. It’s for my grandma. She’s a big fan. She thinks you’re cute. And her name is Pearl.”

 

You almost choke on air. Is that supposed to be flattering? It’s a good thing you were bent over the receipt paper on the counter or she might have noticed your blanching expression. You scribble half-heartedly:

 

‘ _To Pearl,_

_Thanks for being a fan!_

_Eridan Ampora_ ’

 

She keeps smiling as she looks at it. A little too long. You clear your throat. “So, uh, what’s my total?” You still haven’t paid for your donut and your coffee.

 

“Oh, it’s on the house,” she says. She sets your signed receipt paper down on the counter and fills a cup with coffee for you.

 

You mutter some thanks, disappointed that she wasn’t actually a fan of yours after all, and take your coffee over to the bar where the cream and sugar are to dress up your drink. You then wander over to a table and unpack your laptop.

 

You wrote a little bit in high school. Creative fiction. About wizards, mostly. You were really into Harry Potter and magic and stuff like that. You were pretty good. You had people on the internet tell you so.

 

Writing about you should be even easier. You also used to keep a journal, on and off, and an autobiography is essentially a journal that performs to a purpose.

 

You suppose the best place to start would be at your earliest memory. You remember going to the zoo with your nanny when you were about four years old. You can probably find a way to make that into a good beginning.

 

Two and a half hours later, you’ve gone through all of your coffee and about six different openings. You don’t remember how you used to do this. Everything you write seems boring and flat. It’s a struggle to get more than a sentence down at once. You got a few pages on attempts number three and four but then decided that they sucked and scrapped them.

 

It doesn’t help that every few minutes you keep thinking about how all evidence indicates that today you should be miserable, and every time you think that you feel a little more miserable. You’ve been okay with what happened for months, but the significance of this anniversary is just getting to you. You know it’s only significant because you’re making it that way, but you can’t help yourself, and you can’t stop it either.

 

You notice movement behind your computer. Donut Girl is sitting down at your table. You notice there’s another girl behind the counter now. “What are you working on?” she asks, chewing on a sandwich. She must be on her break.

 

You look at her skeptically. Isn’t it common courtesy to ask if it’s okay to sit down? “Is it part of your job to harass customers about what they’re doing?” Your manners obviously aren’t the best either. But you consider this weird. Wouldn’t the manager normally be against her doing this? Unless she is the manager…

 

She doesn’t seem to notice your rudeness. “I’ve just got an insatiable curiosity. If I’m bothering you or distracting you, you can ask me to leave.”

 

You consider pointing out that you didn’t ask her to sit down in the first place. You’re getting the feeling that even though she wasn’t a big fan of yours, she’s the kind of person who will try to associate with someone just because they’re famous, and that kind of annoys you. Even so, it’s not like you’re getting anywhere with your book anyway. Superficial conversation at this point might be welcome, you guess. “I’m trying to write something.”

 

“What are you writing?”

 

You consider her for a moment. You consider that she’s nosy. You suppose in some universe that could be passed off as curiosity. You take your fingers off your keyboard and cross your arms on the table. “It’s an autobiography, if you must know.”

 

“Ooh. Cool. What part are you writing?” She takes another bite of her sandwich, perhaps in preparation for a long answer.

 

“I’m trying to write the beginning, but it’s not turning out.”

 

She chews impatiently, eager to offer more input you didn’t ask for. “Are you trying to make it perfect on the first try?”

 

“Well, not perfect, but I want to have a good foundation to work off of when I’m editing.”

 

“Why?”

 

The question puzzles you. Why not? Wouldn’t you want it to be as close to perfect as possible from the beginning? You express this.

 

“If you try too hard to make it perfect from the start, you’re never going to be happy with anything and you’ll never get anywhere. You should just start with anything, even if it’s horrible, because then it’ll be easy to improve. Isn’t that what you did when you were writing music?”

 

You weren’t expecting to get good advice from a girl whose name you don’t even know, who just invited herself to your table after giving you a free donut. Which you still haven’t eaten, oh yeah. You dig it out of the bag instead of answering her right away and take a bite. It’s pretty amazing. You don’t tell her so.

 

She raises her eyebrows at you.

 

“What?” you say through a mouthful of donut, though you cover your mouth with your hand.

 

“Well?”

 

You have an excuse for absolutely everything but you don’t feel like arguing with her, because you get the feeling she’ll win. Donut Girl strikes you as the persistent type.

 

“I never wrote the lyrics, just the sheet music. It’s not the same as words.” You neglect to mention your wizard fiction. There was no pressure behind that stuff, though. This is both an escape and the means to an end. You _have_ to get it right.

 

“Why isn’t it the same? Was your music perfect on the first try?”

 

“No…” you cautiously admit.

 

She narrows her eyes at you and continues munching on her sandwich. You wonder if she’s done. You don’t think she’s done. You don’t know how to fill the silence so you take another bite of your donut and end up having a bit of a staring contest with her. Her lip gloss doesn’t come off when she eats.

 

You’re expecting her to say something else, but she just keeps working through the sandwich. You consider saying something, but you don’t know what. This girl is kind of weird. What, are you going to ask her if she believes in aliens? You think you already know the answer to that anyway.

 

Unable to handle being stared down much longer, you return to your computer and try typing a few things. You erase all of them, inevitably. But this time it’s because the weird Donut Girl is distracting you. She’s not staring at you anymore, but she’s still there, and you don’t know why. Doesn’t she have friends or coworkers she could bother?

 

She finishes her sandwich and stands up. “Listen, Eridan, I don’t know anything about writing, but if you want to be good at something, you have to be willing to be bad at it first. Start at your worst, and the only thing you can do is get better. Don’t be afraid of failure.”

 

“Wait,” you say as she’s leaving. “Are you just going to give me all that random deep advice without even telling me your name?” You’re not entirely sure why you care, but it seems like the thing to ask.

 

“It’s Aradia. And it’s not that deep. Just google ‘writing tips’ and I’m sure you’ll come up with a lot of similar stuff.” She smiles at you again and heads into the back, leaving you to resume your struggle.

 

XXX

 

You survive the rest of the day by spending most of it in the donut shop. Without admitting to anyone and even trying to hide it from yourself, you try to take Donut Gi—Aradia’s advice. It takes some serious strength to write and not erase everything, and you don’t always manage, but you get more down than you would have if you hadn’t been pestered by a girl with a sandwich.

 

When you do finally go back home, you have a harder time focusing on anything but your past mistakes and go to bed early.

 

The next day, you feel a little better, if only due to the placebo of it no longer being ‘The Anniversary.’ You might not have accomplished much yesterday, in terms of book-writing, but you feel like today has more potential to not be awful. Maybe you can actually write something worthwhile today.

 

You go back to the donut shop, expecting Aradia to be there. She isn’t. You order another coffee and try a different donut because you feel like it would be weird to only order coffee at a donut shop.

 

You don’t get as much done as you’d hoped. You’re still feeling blocked, creatively. It’s still a struggle to lace together words in a way that’s appealing to you. But you keep at it all day anyway. The atmosphere in the donut shop is nice. Cozy, you suppose is the word for it. You decide you’ll make it your official writing niche. Hopefully you won’t be pestered by more employees with insatiable curiosities.

 

Since it’s official (at least in your head, but you don’t know how else it would be), you start going there every day. It’s not like you have other things to do. You don’t have a job; you’re still rich from all the royalties you made off your songs, tours, etc. You don’t need a job, so you don’t have one. You tried getting one after Feferi cut you out of her life, to distract yourself, but it didn’t last because you were too depressed to function. You could probably handle one now, but why work for the sake of working when you could just not work at all?

 

Aradia is there again on Friday. She asks you how your writing is going, and you say it’s okay. You don’t tell her that her advice helped, because honestly you really could have figured it out by yourself by Googling it. Which you did, later, when you kept getting stuck. You’ve probably done about as much reading on how to write as actual writing. You’re not sure how far it’s getting you. You’ve picked up a fairly steady pace, but that pace is slow. Slower than you’d like. You’re frustrated.

 

She comes over and pesters you  on her break again, bringing another sandwich with her. She asks you what part you’re writing. You provide her with ‘elementary school.’ She has to remind you that she’s curious, and that answer doesn’t satiate her, so you throw her a few details. About how you made some friends, and how it took you a while to realize they only wanted to come play at your house because your family was rich and you had lots of cool stuff. You tersely explain that you met Feferi when your parents and hers had dinner, and she had the same problem, and that was how your epic, lasting friendship started. You don’t need to tell her how it ended. It was on the news, after all.

 

She doesn’t press into the Feferi thing, which you are strangely grateful for. She just says it sounds like it’s coming along, wishes you luck, and goes back to work.

 

You find out from habitually going to the donut shop every day for several weeks that she works Tuesdays and Fridays. Every time you’re both there at the same time, she spends her break sitting and interrogating you about your book. You make progress. You get faster. You get better. You are persistent, after all. It’s one of your best qualities.

 

Aradia is, as you suspected upon meeting her, also persistent. She seems pretty keen on getting to know you. Originally, you thought she was just a star-chaser; a generic, cookie-cutter groupie. But she seems genuinely interested in you. You’re not sure of the extent of that interest.

 

A little less than a year ago, if she had even spoken to you for more than five minutes, you would have asked her out. That’s what you did, to recover. You were actively seeking rebound from something you never had. You never got what you were looking for, but what you did get was Vriska, and while the sex might have been great, it was still hate sex. It kind of wrecked you to be abandoned by Feferi and then abused by someone else in such a way.

 

You decided you weren’t doing relationships right, if your last two had ended in such horrible ways. And then when you thought about it, all the ones before that hadn’t be great either. You hadn’t dated much when you were still hung up on Feferi, but when you did, it had always been meaningless. But after she rejected you, you needed to figure out how you were ever going to love another person. Everyone told you shot-gunning it wasn’t going to help you figure that out, and after Vriska you figured they were right.

 

You didn’t know what would, though, so you decided you needed to essentially quit trying for romance at all unless you’re sure something is real. Which meant embracing loneliness, which had always been the hardest thing for you to cope with. You wanted to become famous because you thought it would help you escape that.

 

It’s hard having Aradia take interest in what you’re doing. It’s hard to keep your promise to yourself that you won’t act too quickly and screw everything up again. You’ve had to swallow down more than a few advances. Like you said, you’re not sure how far her interest in you goes, and you’re even less sure of your own. Because it has been hard, and it has been lonely. When you didn’t get Feferi as your girlfriend, you also lost her as your friend. Your best friend.

 

So when Aradia asks you if you want to go bowling with her and her friends, you panic. You didn’t hear the ‘and my friends’ part until after you had declined (rudely, in one syllable) and thought she meant a date. And then you factored in the ‘and my friends’ and realized she’s trying to be nice to you. She’s trying to be _friends_ with you, and you threw it in her face.

 

You said you had to leave, and then you did.

 

That was on a Tuesday. You avoided the donut shop for three days, even though you knew she wouldn’t be there. And during your break, you contemplated your actions. If you quit now, wouldn’t this be another bad ending to add to your collection? An embarrassing one, at that, since it ended before it had even started. You would have made progress in the negative direction by making her hate you even before she got to know you.

 

Karkat insisted it was not too late when you called him and told him what you had done. “ _Yeah, you’re an asschafing fuckwad, but most people are. She could just chalk it up to social retardation. Invite her to Saturday. Tell her you had an aneurysm or something that interfered with your capacity to behave like a decent human being._ ”

 

You don’t remember the last time you were actually nervous about asking a girl out.

 

Okay, you do, but not counting Feferi.

 

It’s not like you’re actually asking her out anyway. It’s not a date. It’s going to be you, Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, and Rose. You will be the only two single people there, so that might be weird, but—actually, you don’t know for sure that she’s single. It could just be you.

 

You park away from the entrance of the donut shop so you can sit in your car and procrastinate a while longer. You’re really getting unreasonably worked up about this.

 

You try on various pep talks. She’s not going to bite you. The worst she could do is say no. Actually, that one kind of works, because it’s true. You’ve already had worse rejection than anything she could possibly offer you. Okay, time to just suck it up.

 

You get out of your car and go in. She’s there, at the counter. She smiles at you. Maybe a little less brightly than normal. You’re not sure.

 

“Hey,” you begin. Good, you can at least say words. A word.

 

“Hey. What can I get for you?”

 

Maybe not a good sign. She usually by asking you something about your book or at least a ‘How are you,’ but today it’s just straight down to business.

 

There’s a loose thread on your shirt that’s perfect for fidgeting with. “Um, actually, about Tuesday—”

 

Aradia waves a hand at you. “Oh, don’t worry about it.”

 

“No, I am worried about it. I didn’t mean to—I have this thing.”

 

She looks quizzical. “Thing?”

 

Wait, you don’t actually want to tell her your whole spiel on not dating. That’s lame. Or at least irrelevant. Backtrack. “The thing’s not important. I was wondering—We—My friends and I—are having a get-together on Saturday and… Do you want to come? It’ll be after you get off, later in the evening.”

 

If her smile wasn’t at its usual brightness before, it definitely is now. “Ooh, like a party?”

 

“Sort of. There won’t be too many of us. Just five, including me. Six, if you come.”

 

She puts her elbows on the counter and threads her fingers together under her chin, looking up at you coyly. “Hmmm. Are your friends cool?” Now she’s just teasing you.

 

You drop the hand that was fidgeting with your thread to your side and assume a look of exasperation. “Will you just say yes already?”

 

“Alright, alright. What’s the address?”

 

You write it down for her on another scrap of receipt paper, tell her everyone else is going to be there at 8, but she can show up any time. You didn’t bring your computer today, considering she might have be offended by your denial of friendship and hanging around could have been awkward. So you go home, where you will attempt to work on your book again, but ultimately just end up fidgeting your way to Saturday.

 

XXX

 

It’s not a date, but you still spend just as long deciding what to wear as if it had been. You change four times and eventually just end up wearing a long-sleeved grey V-neck and a purple patterned silk scarf, deciding everything else you tried was too over-the-top to be appropriate.

 

Karkat and Terezi show up first, as they normally do. Karkat was yours and Feferi’s manager back when you were performing, and you both stayed friends with him. He’s also friends with Sollux, but you consider that irrelevant. However, you almost severed your friendship with Karkat after what happened because you kept asking about how Feferi was doing since you knew he saw her on a semi-regular basis and it was driving him nuts, but when threatened with losing him as well, you stopped. You’re glad you did, because you needed Karkat, or you might have been completely alone. You had to learn not to rely too heavily on him, though. He wouldn’t allow it. It was tough love for a while. He was there for you, but there was only so much he could tolerate without losing his mind. You don’t blame him, and you don’t resent him for it, but you’re glad you’re less of a pain in the ass now.

 

He and Terezi have been dating for a few years. You didn’t really talk to her much until this past year. You were too busy being famous, and she was busy going to law school. But now you consider her a friend too.

 

The three of you catch up, and after a while, Kanaya and Rose show up. You met them through Karkat too. The guy kind of has an endless supply of friends, which is both weird and not weird at all to you, because he’s kind of a jerk, but he’s the nicest jerk you’ve ever met.

 

Kanaya knows Karkat because she’s designed clothes for some of his clients before. Not you. But she does like your style, most of the time. Or at least, that’s what she’s said. Sometimes her sarcasm is a little hard to pick up on.

 

Rose is her girlfriend, and she likes to psychoanalyze people. It is her job, after all, as a therapist. You didn’t much appreciate her picking at your brain when you were trying to recover from your trauma, but when you snapped at her once, she did back off. She says she knows people don’t always appreciate her insight. Later, you realized you could use a little bit of insight, and she was glad to provide. Up to a point, and then she said you’d have to start paying her.

 

Aradia comes half an hour late. Whereas Karkat and Terezi brought Merlot, Aradia brought Cards Against Humanity.

 

“Have you guys ever played this game?” she asks excitedly. “It’s really fun. Kind of inappropriate though. If anyone’s easily offended, maybe we shouldn’t…”

 

“We’re all fairly offensive people at times, and we all survive each other’s company,” Rose says. “I’d be willing to give it a try.”

 

“Sounds better than watching another one of Karkat and Eridan’s dumb rom coms,” Terezi chimes in.

 

“Hey, Hitch is a great movie,” Karkat insists. That had been the movie he’d brought for you all to watch tonight. “Besides, I thought you liked it.”

 

“I liked it the first time, but after the eleventh it started getting a little old.”

 

After a little more abuse of Karkat’s cinematic tastes, and to an extent, yours, you all agree to give Aradia’s game a try. She explains how the game works, which is fairly simple to grasp once you all realize it’s like Apples to Apples, with an added component of horribleness.

 

You draw your cards.

 

‘Christopher Walken.’

 

‘Geese.’

 

‘Fancy Feast®.’

 

Aradia says she will be the Card Czar first. The black card she draws is ‘What’s the next Happy Meal® Toy?’

 

You go with ‘Viagra.’ You just barely lose to Karkat’s ‘Anal beads.’

 

“I like this game,” he says, taking his prize.

 

Aradia is smiling brightly. “I’m glad.”

 

The game is easy to get the hang of. You all quickly realize that the most offensive answer will almost always win out over the one that makes the most sense. You get competitive. You feel a little bad for Aradia because unlike the rest of you, she can’t play her cards to match the Card Czar’s tastes, since she doesn’t really know anyone besides you. But she does well enough anyway without that advantage.

 

She’s a way more inappropriate person than you would have guessed. But then, you guess this game probably brings that out in most people.

 

You realize, stemming from that observation, that you don’t actually know that much about her. She asks you about your book all the time, but you never reciprocate by asking her anything about yourself. It didn’t really occur to you to do that. In the very beginning, she forced herself on you by sitting at your table in the donut shop.

 

You haven’t really started a relationship of any kind in a while. In fact, if you think about it, every time you have in the past year—no, longer than that, even—it was facilitated by another person (Karkat, Feferi) or alcohol (in the case of Vriska, and countless others). When was the last time you tried to genuinely get to know someone? You don’t remember.

 

Somewhere around Kanaya’s ‘Chainsaws for hands, High five, bro,’ you break into the Merlot. You promise Terezi that when that runs out, you have vodka. There’s a protest to the tune of ‘But I have to drive home’ from Aradia.

 

“Just stay here, that’s what we’re doing,” Terezi says, speaking for herself and Karkat. And you, apparently. You don’t actually mind.

 

“Is there enough room for everyone?” Aradia continues, unsure.

 

“Rose and I won’t be staying,” Kanaya adds. “Eridan has an extra bedroom and a couch. You’ll be fine.”

 

“I suppose I could take the couch…”

 

“Or Eridan could take the couch and you could have his bed.” Apparently Rose is also speaking for you.

 

“Oh no, I couldn’t—”

 

“ _Or_ , you could share with me and the boys could share with each other,” Terezi says, grinning. “I promise I won’t bite…unless you ask me to.”

 

“Despite evidence to the contrary, she won’t actually molest you in your sleep. I promise,” Karkat says, holding up his hand like he’s pledging. “She does fart however,” he mutters under his breath. Terezi stomps on his foot and smiles innocently.

 

Aradia smiles, unconcerned, it would seem. “Would that be okay with you?” she thinks to ask you.

 

“Yeah, that’s fine. We’ll figure out the sleeping arrangements later.” You think what Terezi suggested will probably work, as long as she doesn’t get too drunk and consequently too frisky.

 

There’s a minor hiccup when Aradia discovers Rose isn’t drinking either. She doesn’t want Rose to be the only one, so she offers to abstain with her, but Rose and Kanaya both insist that it’s fine, and she hesitantly concedes. Rose used to have a big drinking problem, before you knew her, but she did the work to get through it. She used to have a hard time being around people who were drinking when she wasn’t, but now she can handle it fine. Or so you’re told. It’s hard for you to ever tell what Rose is thinking.

 

Between the five of you, you do quickly run out of wine before you run out of steam for the game, and Terezi demands more alcohol. You might as well get her so drunk she just passes out, else she get too friendly with Aradia later.

 

You’ve got orange juice or cranberry juice to go with the vodka, which is fine with everyone. Your friends think to ask Aradia more about herself while you’re busy getting everyone drinks. You listen without participating in the conversation. She’s in grad school right now, studying to be an archaeologist. She’s known that was what she wanted to do since she was young. She used to pretend to investigate ‘ruins’ at playgrounds as a kid.

 

When you come back, the game resumes. Everything was funny before, but you think one of you might have to go to the hospital soon from laughing to hard now that you’re all a little drunk. At least Rose can drive, if it comes down to that. When Terezi puts down ‘Bees?’ for ‘During sex, I like to think about ____’ there’s laughter for a good five minutes. You think Karkat might pass out. Aradia has to put her head down on the table. Rose insists she’s having a good time if only because you all laugh at things that really aren’t that funny, and that’s funny in itself.

 

When you all stop laughing (or at least, when it subsides to weak giggles), Aradia lifts her head. She’s got hair stuck to her forehead. Without really thinking, you reach across the table and gently brush it back down.

 

She giggles, a little remnant from earlier mirth. “Thanks.”

 

“No problem,” you say, sitting back down.

 

You notice Karkat and Rose both giving you looks. Kanaya is smiling into her cards. Terezi wasn’t paying attention.

 

You clear your throat. “Whose turn is it?”

 

“Yours,” Kanaya says.

 

You pick up the next black card. “Next from J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Chamber of…” You grin. “Alright, impress me. I won’t stand for mere dick jokes.”

 

Their idea of impressing you is Skeletor, Crystal meth, Dick Cheney, Vigorous jazz hands, and Swag.

 

“I said no dick jokes,” you say, pushing Cheney’s card out of the pile. To be fair, it was a good card. You briefly imagine Harry getting shot in the head while on detention in the Forbidden Forest.

 

Rose rests her chin on her hand and swirls her drink with the other. “Darn. I suppose it would be too cruel if Dick Cheney joined forces with Voldemort.”

 

You consider the remaining contestants. “Hmm… I’m going to go with ‘Swag’ because it’s the second most awful.”

 

Kanaya coyly pulls the card over to her substantial pile. “The only thing swag was ever good for.”

 

“You fed the monster,” Karkat complains. “How dare you. If she wins we’re going to have to take all your alcohol as recompense to drown our sorrows.” Kanaya raises her glass to him and takes a dainty sip.

 

“You’re doing that anyway,” you point out.

 

“Then I’ll hold you personally accountable and you’ll have to buy me a pony. With a pink heart tattooed on its ass. And a bow.”

 

“Put it on your Christmas list. And draw a card, it’s your turn.”

 

You keep playing for another hour and a half. Rose ends up beating Kanaya by one. Terezi wins the next game. Aradia had won the first, which left you, Karkat, and Kanaya with zero wins under your belts. Karkat wants to play again, but Terezi says between the booze and her cataracts, she’s having trouble reading the cards now. Aradia is surprised to hear Terezi has cataracts. She hadn’t noticed.

 

“Yeah, my mom has them too and I got them kind of early. I’ve gotten surgery before but they keep coming back. It’s fine, though. I can still get around.” She smiles and downs the last of her drink. “Mr. Ampora, I would like another of your delicious orange juice-vodka concoctions. And I think we should watch Archer.” Terezi is a little obsessed with Archer. She’s called him ‘delicious’ on more than one occasion.

 

You take her glass. “Fine. Anyone else want another while I’m up? Raids?”

 

Aradia shakes her head. “I’m okay, thanks.”

 

“Alright. Kar, set up the TV.” You head back into the kitchen.

 

“Yes, your majesty,” he sasses, but goes with the others into your living room.

 

You’re thinking about Aradia. You’re really glad you invited her. Your friends seem to like her. Rose hasn’t delved too deep into her psyche, so you’re pretty sure she’s not afraid of your friends. You like her sense of humor, or at least the horrible side of it. You’d like to know the other side of it too, if there is one. She snorts when she laughs really, really hard, but it’s funny and cute.

 

You zoned out a little and poured more orange juice than you meant to into Terezi’s glass. Oops.

 

When you go into the living room, you see that Rose and Kanaya are both occupying your large armchair, with Rose gracefully draped across Kanaya’s lap. Karkat is at one end of the couch and Terezi’s sitting on the floor so he can massage her shoulders. Aradia’s in the middle of the couch, leaving the only spot open the one next to her. Sneaky bastards.

 

“If you spill this on my carpet, I’ll make you lick it clean,” you tell Terezi as you hand her the drink.

 

“She’d enjoy it,” Karkat snorts.

 

“Rose or Kanaya would enjoy it more.”

 

You sink into the couch and groan. “Wow, Rez, guess who’s on their last drink for the night?”

 

“Is it me?” She doesn’t sound all that disappointed. Probably because she got to make her joke.

 

“Bingo.”

 

Kanaya whispers something to Rose and she giggles too. They must not be too upset about it.

 

Archer goes through his usual nonsense and you’re all now too sleepy-drunk to do more than chuckle occasionally. It’s a calm atmosphere with a comfortable lack of conversation. You wonder when you got so old that you get tired at midnight, but you’re not sure you’ll last too much longer tonight. Luckily everyone in this show likes to scream a lot, so it’s keeping you a little awake. But your couch is really comfortable. If you’re not careful, you might doze off.

 

You hear more quiet laughter at a not-particularly-funny scene and notice Kanaya is now kissing the back of Rose’s neck. Discretely, but then again not. Karkat has stopped massaging Terezi’s shoulders and is now just resting his hands on them, intent on the show. And Aradia is…asleep. You’re not 100% sure but you think she’s slowly slouching down towards your arm, guided by gravity.

 

Shuffling further to the right of her distracts you from her gentle decline. Rose and Kanaya are getting up. “I think it’s time for us to go,” Rose says.

 

More like ‘go home and bang.’ You start to stand but Kanaya holds up a hand for you to stop. “Don’t get up, we can see ourselves out. Wouldn’t want to wake her.”

 

“I don’t know what you guys are thinkin’, but it’s not going to happen, so you can stop with all the sneaky looks and musical chairs,” you grumble quietly.

 

They defy you instantly by exchanging looks with each other and heading towards the door.

 

“You’ve got lipstick on your neck,” you hiss at Rose. She grabs Kanaya’s ass in response. Kanaya jumps and says something to her that you don’t catch because they shut the door and are gone. Karkat starts cracking up and has to rest his forehead on the top of Terezi’s head. Aradia gives a little sigh in her sleep. Her head is only a few centimeters from your arm.

 

It’s tempting to just sit there and let her cross that distance. It would only take another minute. But then where would you be? A cute, sleeping girl would be resting on your arm, and all you would be able to think about would be feelings. The loneliness you keep repressed would surface and you would wonder if there was anything you could do about it, regarding her. But then you would think that you’re afraid to risk losing what you already have. And you don’t know if you’re ready, by your own standards. You’d be forced to contemplate a lot of things that are probably ultimately bad ideas.

 

So instead of letting all that happen, you do get up, and the shift in weight on the couch wakes Aradia up. “I think we should go to bed.”

 

“Sorry, I didn’t realize I fell asleep,” Aradia says, rubbing her eyes. She stands up. “I would be fine sharing with you, Terezi, if the offer’s still open.”

 

“It certainly is.” She stifles a yawn. “I’ll show you where the guest bedroom is. Goodnight, boys.”

 

You and Karkat both bid them goodnight, and they disappear into the hall. Karkat helps you collect the glasses and put them in the sink, then you go into your room. You take a minute to change into your sweatpants and t-shirt that you wear as pajamas in the bathroom. When you turn off the light and climb into bed next to him, it’s silent for a moment. You’re almost asleep when he speaks.

 

“I couldn’t help but notice the look of ‘freshly kicked puppy’ on your face when you got up to tell us all to go to bed. Maybe it was just constipation, but maybe you’re doing that thing again where you suffer on purpose. Which is fine, I guess, if that’s what gets you off, but you could also, you know, not do that and fucking ask her out.”

 

You sigh. “Kar, I don’t want to talk about this. I can’t believe after questionin’ every form of a relationship I ever tried to have over the last year, now you’re suddenly tellin’ me to jump into somethin’ like I always used to.”

 

“Well you used to ask out anything with a pulse that blinked in your general sniveling direction, to say nothing of Vriska. But never mind that you’ve actually known this girl for a few weeks and you genuinely seem to like her, and she seems to like you. Go ahead and keep auto-fellating for 17 hours a day if it’ll make you happy. Make sure you get a good chiropractor.”

 

“You know I got standards for myself now. I woulda thought you would be supportive of that. I thought you woulda been head fuckin’ cheerleader on that front.”

 

Now he sighs. “I am, if that’s what you really want. But is it?”

 

“I don’t want to make the same mistakes I made before.”

 

“So this is about Feferi? Are you still not over her?”

 

You turn your head over your shoulder, and he glances at you nervously. “Of course I am! I can’t believe you said that.” Something in you aches.

 

He puts his hand up to his head and covers his eyes. “Okay, that was kind of a shitty choice of words, but what I meant was…just because Feferi…didn’t want to be with you…doesn’t mean you are forbidden from relationships forever. I know you feel like you fucked up completely for how you handled the whole thing, and you certainly wouldn’t get an A+ and a gold star, but… You don’t _have_ to suffer for the rest of your life, Eridan.”

 

“That’s not what I’m doing,” you say, though you can’t provide any elaboration.

 

“…Forget I said anything.” You must have sounded really angry or bitter for him to just drop it like that. “Let’s just go to sleep, I’m tired.”

 

“You were the one who brought it up in the first place.”

 

“ _Goodnight_ , asshole.”

 

You pull the covers up tighter around your shoulders and close your eyes. “Yeah, ‘night.”

 

XXX

 

You wake up gradually to the sound of snoring, realizing your sleep had been restless. When you finally realize, yes, you are really awake, you turn over and grope for your alarm clock to read the time. Squinting without your glasses, you can barely tell that it’s 4:31 in the morning. You sigh and turn over, trying to get comfortable, knowing, but not wanting to acknowledge that you’re going to have a hard time getting back to sleep.

 

You try in vain to achieve unconsciousness again for another twenty minutes, but your mind won’t quiet down now, and neither will the air whistling through Karkat’s sinuses. So you carefully get out of your bed, taking your glasses from the night stand, and make your way to the living room. You grab a couple of Tylenol from the bathroom on the way out to help with the headache you earned from not drinking enough water last night.

 

You stare at the many rows of movie titles you have stored in your cabinet, waiting for something to jump out at you. The Philadelphia Story. Of course. That’s what you want to watch at 5 AM.

 

You set it up, turn the volume down way low so as not to disturb any of your happily slumbering guests, and setting on the couch, pulling the blanket slung over the back of it down to snuggle into.

 

Your house feels strangely surreal to you. It’s quiet outside, and even though you can hear the movie, its sound only adds to the silence. You can easily imagine that you’re the only person on the planet at this point in the cycle of day, when there are no cars passing by or birds or any ambience of any kind.

 

That’s why you feel particularly confused when Aradia comes out of the hallway. She pauses in the entry to the living room, looking at you, as if she also can’t believe you’re real. The she quietly crosses over to you. You don’t think to move, and only realize you probably should have too late when she’s pushing your legs to the side and crawling under the blanket with you, your feet by each other’s ribs. It occurs to you that it should strike you as weird that someone you don’t know very well is essentially cuddling with you on your couch, but it’s a weird time of day and you suppose that gives the universe permission to make strange things happen without consequence.

 

She watches the movie with you for a minute, or maybe five, you don’t know. “You’re awake,” she says, her words floating into the empty space between you.

 

“Karkat snores,” you provide.

 

“So does Terezi.”

 

There’s another second in which the only sound comes from the movie, and then you both giggle a little. You imagine she’s probably tired. You are too, but you don’t feel like sleeping. It is nice here, if not a little strange, sharing the warmth of another person and watching a movie in the quiet hours of early morning.

 

“Eridan.”

 

“Mm?” You didn’t turn your head away from the screen when she asked, but when an answer doesn’t come right away, you look at her. She’s still turned away from you, but you think you notice her eyes flicker in your direction for a second.

 

“What’s your favorite color?”

 

Not what you were expecting. You don’t know what you were expecting. “It’s purple. Why?”

 

“No, this is the part where you say, ‘What’s yours?’”

 

You raise an eyebrow at her, but smile a little and try again. “Okay, what’s yours?”

 

“Red. Now ask me another question.”

 

You’re confused. It’s not the right time of day for this. “Are we playing twenty questions or something?”

 

“No, it’s a different game called ‘getting to know each other.’ Ask me a question,” she repeats.

 

You think of questioning her reason for doing this now, of all times, but you don’t. It’s early and you don’t want to argue. You would have gone with favorite color, but now that that’s out you have to think of something else. “Uhhh… What’s your favorite…kind of pie?”

 

She hums in thought. “Probably…cherry cheesecake.”

 

“Does cheesecake count as pie?”

 

“You make it in a pie dish, so I don’t see why not. What’s your favorite?”

 

“Apple. Gotta stick to the classics.”

 

Neither of you are really paying attention to the movie now. “Okay next question: milk or dark chocolate?”

 

“Dark.”

 

“I like dark too.” She smiles. It looks like she’s braiding the fringe on the end of your blanket.

 

“Glad we could agree. I guess it’s my turn then…” You’re having trouble thinking of things that don’t involve food. “Love or money?” You’re remembering questions you’ve been asked in interviews before, what feels like lifetimes ago.

 

Her smile fades into something softer, more neutral. “Love.”

 

“Love,” you agree.

 

You think the game might be over because you went too deep and it got intimate there for a moment and Aradia just looks at you, but then her smile re-brightens and the moment has passed.

 

“Last question.”

 

You’re surprised it’s going to be over so quickly. Maybe you did throw her off. “Okay, if you say so. What is it?”

 

She’s focusing on her hands, unbraiding the braids she’s put in your blanket. She sighs and looks up, smiling as she always is. “Are you ever going to ask me out, or am I going to have to make the first move?”

 

You freeze up. You’re sure it just got ten degrees colder in the room.

 

You look away from her and at the movie screen, feeling the blood drain out of your head. You try to grab one of the thoughts zipping through your head and process it, but nothing will hold still long enough for you to figure out what it means. All you can think about now is how she’s watching you, waiting for an answer, and that makes it even harder to give one. It’s not fair that she’s asking you this before sunrise.

 

Aradia can only wait for so long before giving up on a reply. She shifts, starts moving out from under the blanket. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She’s getting up to leave. For some reason this makes you panic more.

 

“No, no, wait. Stay. Please.”

 

She looks as if she’s debating defying you, but settles back in after a few seconds. She’s not smiling anymore.

 

You look at your hands. You look past your hands to the tiny fibers of fuzz that compose your blanket. You think about what Karkat said to you. You’ve probably been thinking about it since you went to sleep, contemplating it while you dreamt, subconsciously attending to it the whole time she’s been sitting here with you.

 

You agree with Karkat. You don’t want to acknowledge that you do, because you think it makes you selfish, and that got you in trouble last time. She said you were selfish, that you didn’t care about her anymore. You didn’t pay attention to her feelings, and it was all about you. So now that’s what you’re afraid of the most.

 

But maybe you’re weak too. Too weak to do what’s best for everyone. Because you really want this. You want to just accept that someone’s interested in you and take it from there, like any normal person would.

 

When you wonder why you can’t just do this, the best answer you can come up with is ‘Because.’ Maybe you are punishing yourself. For not being the right kind of friend to Feferi.

 

But maybe you should stop. You’re tired. You miss other people paying attention to you.

 

“Eridan?”

 

“I would like that.” The words come out without your full instruction. It takes you a moment to recall what they mean. “To go out with you, that is.”

 

“You don’t seem very sure. I mean, it took you a while to even answer.”

 

You shake your head. “I’m sorry. I was just working through some stuff in my head. Stupid stuff.”

 

“Maybe…” She bites her lip. “Maybe you should keep working through it until Tuesday. Give me an answer then.”

 

You feel like you’ve messed up somehow. “Yeah, I can do that.” Maybe it’s a sign that you aren’t meant to do this after all.

 

“I’m going to try to get some more sleep,” she says, getting up again. This time you don’t stop her. “I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.”

 

“Okay. ‘Night, Raids.” You watch her until she’s out of sight, and your gaze lingers on the spot where she disappeared, before drifting back to the TV, which you don’t actively watch.

 

You don’t know what you’re doing. Things were simpler back when you just did whatever made you happy, before you knew you were being a complete asshole to everyone around you. Or rather, before you cared. You suppose you always knew, but you had always had this sense of entitlement. You’ve kind of outgrown it now. You’re sad and flawed and dysfunctional, just like everyone else, and it’s not cute to pretend otherwise anymore.

 

So where does that leave you?

 

She likes you.

 

Do you like her? Genuinely? Or is this just a product of too much time alone, ostracized by your own design?

 

You’ve always been quick to form attachments, and you think you feel attachment to her. You would be unhappy if, suddenly, the cheerful Donut Girl was gone from your life. Is attachment different than romantic attraction? Is that what you need to start a relationship, or will something lesser suffice, and you can build it into something more? Is it even less than that, or do you already have what it takes?

 

She gave you time to think on it. You should use that. You’re not sure you’ll actually get anywhere just being inside your own head for two days, but you should try.

 

A while later, despite having a lot to think about, your brain finally shuts down and you fall asleep on the couch.

 

XXX

 

Terezi wakes you up by sitting on your lungs. Her ass is really bony, and it’s incredibly painful. She demands to raid your stash of over the counter drugs for the horrible hangover she exhibits no signs of having at all. You play pharmacist and pass out various drugs to your guests, and then they all leave.

 

You wait half an hour to allow driving time before calling Karkat. He sounds unsurprised by your story. He asks you what you’re going to do. You say you called him for a reason. He tells you he’s already given you his opinion and if you’re looking for a different one you might try checking your ass. He warns you that if you’re not careful, you’re going to come full circle, for different reasons. You say you don’t know what he’s talking about, but he refuses to elaborate.

 

You have breakfast. You brush your teeth. You take a shower. You spend longer than you need to styling your hair, but the result is admittedly excellent.

 

Ultimately you grow tired of inner turmoil and essentially give up on it. You were never very good at denying yourself things you really wanted, and you didn’t see the point either. You’ve done well for a long time, by whatever standards you set previously. But now people are telling you that you deserve to have something, and your instinct is to deny it?

 

Why?

 

What could it hurt?

 

Tuesday arrives, after an eternity. You go right into Sunshine Donuts and ask her, with full confidence, when she’s going to be free. She beams that beautiful red smile at you and says Friday at seven.

 

This time you brought your computer. You stay in the shop and get a lot done on your book, and talk to her on her break as usual. You’re both all smiles, and probably damned adorable to any outsiders as well.

 

You do a lot of planning for Friday. You’ve got a bunch of restaurants picked out, and you will choose depending on what kind of food she’s in the mood for. And if she has a bit of time after that, you’ll drive up the coast a little bit and go to the pier. They have cute little shops and there’s a place with excellent crepes and also a Ferris wheel. You plan the most excellent, romantic dates. Feferi didn’t know what she was missing.

 

You end up going to a Thai place, because she loves Thai tea and hasn’t had it in forever. She makes you try some because you admit you’ve never had it and you are instantly addicted. You both have two over the course of dinner. You also manage to drop cashew chicken on your pants, which is very un-suave of you, and you’re pretty sure you’re red for five minutes afterwards.

 

She’s up for the crepes and the pier, though. You end up sharing one because they’re huge. You struggle to cut it with the measly plastic fork they gave you while you walk around looking in the little shops. Not all of the stuff is that appealing, since it’s pretty tourist-y, but Aradia finds a lady who makes hair bows and picks out a big dark red one with a little plastic skull in the middle of it. She won’t let you pay for it, since you covered dinner and desert, but she does let you put it in her hair for her. She says you win ten points for being able to do it properly. Her last boyfriend lost points for that reason. But she says your hair is much nicer than his was anyway. You’re quite flattered, though unsurprised. Your hair happens to be better than most peoples’.

 

You might have been secretly hoping she was at least a little afraid of heights so she would cling to you in the Ferris wheel, but as far as you can tell she isn’t afraid of anything. She wants you to help her rock it, ‘to see what would happen,’ and then _you_ freak out just a little bit and have to ask her to sit down, please, Raids, please, we’re both too pretty to die. She obliges because you said she was pretty. To which you say, duh.

 

You debate kissing her the entire time you’re on the Ferris wheel, and for the entire drive on the way home, since you’re on a whim of indulging yourself. But you do eventually chicken out, remembering how much crap Vriska gave you for kissing her on your first “date,” even though she kept getting way close to your face like she wanted you to. She definitely wanted you to, but then again maybe it was just so she could give you crap about it. You do, however, say you should do something again. Like, another date. She surprises you by saying how about Sunday? You say fine, but it’s her turn to plan it.

 

Sunday she hands you a huge backpack that you’re not allowed to look inside of and you drive an hour to get to a mountain that takes you three hours to hike to the top of. You are by no means out of shape (although you have eaten more donuts in the past few weeks than you’re comfortable admitting), but her pace is very fast, and you are panting by the time you reach the top of the peak. You’re finally allowed to open the backpack. It’s a picnic, complete with red and white checked picnic blanket and…apple pie. You’re thoroughly impressed. It’s delicious. You tell her she’s an excellent baker. She grins and tells you she bought it at Vons.

 

At the bottom of the hill you can no longer resist the thought of kissing her and get an idea. You feign being short of breath, and at first she berates you because you were going downhill after all, but then you start clutching your chest and gasp out that you think you’re having an asthma attack and she starts panicking, asking you where your inhaler is and oh god Eridan why didn’t you tell her sooner? You wheeze out that you need CPR and she catches on and punches you hard in the leg, storms off, and tells you that you can walk home. You realize your idea was actually extremely stupid and you feel like an asshole.

 

She doesn’t actually make you walk home, which gives you the opportunity to mumble an apology after a bit of mental preparation. She calls you a ‘dumb stupid butthead.’ You’re quiet for a minute, and then you unwisely tell her that she’s bad at insulting people. She says she knows. You start laughing. She starts laughing. You get the gall to ask if you’re forgiven. She says only if you take her on another date, and give her a full list of any medical ailments you have now or have had in the past beforehand. You think those terms are fair.

 

You spend the third date building up your credibility as not-an-asshole. You don’t get around to kissing her until the fourth date. It’s late at night and the show you were going to see was canceled, so you went to a nearby park and sat on the swings and talked. You reached across and grabbed the chain of her swing, pulling her close to you. This is an incredibly obvious move and is slow enough that she has plenty of time to back out of it, but she doesn’t. When your lips break apart, she quickly pushes you away and sneezes violently. She says she thinks she’s allergic to you. You say the evidence was inconclusive, and kiss her again. She actually sneezes again, and then she can’t stop laughing. You abandon your swing and lie down in the sand, defeated. This turns out to have been a truly horrible idea and you bitch about having sand in your everything as you walk back to your car. Aradia laughs almost consistently through your complaints, and points out that you brought it on yourself. She asks you if you need a diaper change, because you’re being a baby. You politely decline.

 

And things continue in this way for a few more weeks, until you are very securely and happily her boyfriend, and she is equally comfortably defined as your girlfriend. The honeymoon stage of your relationship is timed around when her birthday is, so you have to make up an excuse to not be around her so you can get her something for her birthday.

 

As you’re leaving the department store where you got her gift, you get a text from her and look down to check your phone. You accidentally walk into someone. The bag you’re holding gets caught on her bracelet. “Sorry, god I’m so sorry,” you say hurriedly, trying to disentangle you from each other. You succeed, tearing your bag a little, and finally look up at her face.

 

Oh.

 

Wow.

 

“Fef,” you breathe, turned to stone.

 

“Eridan.” She looks mystified.

 

You regain the use of your legs in an instant and immediately head off towards your car. “Sorry, I didn’t know you’d be here,” you call back to her without turning around.

 

Her jewelry jangles as she runs up to you and catches your arm. “Eridan, wait!”

 

Her voice commands you. You stop. You don’t turn around. You wait for her to say something. You’re not sure how long you wait. You have to say something. “I thought you didn’t come into this part of town.”

 

“I had to get a new hairdresser. My old one moved. Eridan—”

 

“What?”

 

“Will you look at me please? I don’t want to talk to your back.”

 

You turn around stiffly. You look at her forehead, not her eyes. You’re full of emotions and you can’t place a single one of them.

 

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently.”

 

“Oh.”

 

You notice vaguely the sad expression on her face from your peripherals. “If you don’t want to talk to me, I understand.”

 

The iciness in you breaks at her tone and you finally force yourself to look at her properly. “Fef, of course I want to talk to you. I haven’t seen you in over a year.”

 

She smiles weakly. “Do you want to get some coffee with me?”

 

“Sure.”

 

You get coffee. Through the whole thing, you’re trying to shake off the sense that you can’t decipher how you feel, that you’re caught in a storm of emotions and they’re all just hitting you in the face and flying away before you can get a glimpse of them.

 

The first thing she does is apologize to you, and you apologize right back, and you wonder if it means anything to either of you. She says the restraining order was partially her Dad’s idea, partially Sollux’s. But she defends them both, and says ultimately the decision was hers. But she says she wants to get it dissolved. She doesn’t feel like she needs it. She’s still with Sollux. They live together. You tell her you have a girlfriend. Her name’s Aradia. Her birthday is in two weeks and four days. You were getting her a present. That’s what’s in the bag. She’s happy for you. Genuinely. More emotions you can’t decipher.

 

You talk for an hour—you sit there in Starbucks with that haze buzzing around your head for an hour. At the end of it, she invites to come have dinner at their house next week. She says to bring your girlfriend. You promise to ask. She gives you her new number, tells you to call or text her when you know if you’d like to go.

 

When Aradia comes over to watch a movie at your house, she says you seem unhappy. You tell her you’re not. You’re the opposite, actually. You tell her you ran into Feferi. You extend the dinner invitation.

 

“Do you want to go?” she asks, searching your face for an answer she won’t find.

 

“Yeah. I’d like to. It’s nice to know she doesn’t still hate me.”

 

She nods. She gives a smile. Trusting. “If you want to go, I’ll go.”

 

So you go.

 

You had told Aradia about what happened the night of the show, when you had asked Feferi to be your girlfriend. You had told her about punching her boyfriend in the face. You had elaborated that you had never gotten along very well in the first place, because he liked to sass you instead of answering your questions and always acted like you owed him something because he did all the tweaking on your songs to make them perfect. You express nervousness to her the night of the dinner because you want to get along with Feferi, but you’re not sure if Boyfriend will behave himself. She pats your cheek and kisses your nose and tells you if you just apologize to him she’s sure it will be fine. An apology can go a long way.

 

So when Feferi opens the door, you’re prepared. He’s standing behind Feferi, looking not quite _hostile_ but not quite friendly either. You’re so preoccupied on apologizing to him that you accidentally don’t greet her, but you get it out of the way at least. He accepts your apology minimally (‘It’s okay’—with a slightly hissy ‘s,’ but not nearly as bad as you remember it), and Fef seems pleased.

 

Aradia had been standing back a bit, and the door wasn’t open all the way, but she steps forward, clearing her throat, and shakes Feferi’s hand. “Hi, Aradia Megido.”

 

Sollux’s mouth drops open. He squints at her. You bristle. “AA?”

 

She looks at him. “Sollux?!” She suddenly hugs him tightly. You bristle more. You look at Feferi. She looks like she knows something you don’t. “I thought you moved to Hawaii!”

 

“I moved back!”

 

Turns out they were childhood friends. Sollux had told Feferi, but Aradia hadn’t told you yet. You somehow neglected to drop Sollux’s name throughout your whole description of what had happened between you. You had thought it was unimportant. You feel kind of sulky.

 

Sollux and Aradia do a lot of talking to each other before Aradia points out that they’re excluding you and Feferi from the conversation, and you’re grateful to her. She tries to steer the conversation towards something more inclusive when you all sit down at the table. “This food looks amazing! Did you make it all?”

 

“FF did. She’s a great cook.”

 

Feferi puts her hand on Sollux’s shoulder. “Sollux, you helped.”

 

“I tossed the salad.”

 

Aradia laughs. “Well, you did a good job.”

 

You clear your throat. “Aradia is also a really good cook. She makes amazing stuff all the time.”

 

She pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth. She looks at you quizzically, intrigued. “What are you talking about? All I ever make is pasta. You’re the chef, between the two of us. He makes really good omelets. With avocado, oh! They’re so good.”

 

Feferi giggles. “Back when I knew Eridan, he couldn’t even pour himself a bowl of cereal.”

 

You don’t say anything. The topic changes. Aradia asks what they both do. Sollux explains that he got a degree in computer science but what he actually does is recording engineering. He says Feferi is working on releasing another album, by herself. You didn’t know about this. From the look on Feferi’s face, you think it might have been a secret, but she doesn’t say anything, just shakily says, “Yeah, well, I was getting a little bored doing nothing, and I really love music so I wanted to keep doing it.”

 

“Aradia’s getting her Master’s right now for archaeology,” you blurt out. “She’s going to get her PhD after that.”

 

Aradia gives you another questioning look. “Yeah, but I might try to work a while in between the two so I can save up some money.”

 

“Why don’t you just let me pay for it?”

 

The three of them look at you. Sollux has raised an eyebrow.

 

“What—Eridan—”

 

You’re not entirely sure why you keep talking. “I would. Because I love you.”

 

“Uh.” She glances at Feferi and Sollux, then back at you. “Maybe we can talk about this later?”

 

“Sure thing, babe.”

 

She mouths ‘babe’ to you, questioning. You’ve never called her ‘babe’ before.

 

The conversation continues, haltingly. You feel that haze again you had when you went to coffee with Feferi. You’re aware of yourself interrupting the others with things about Aradia or yourself. Things that are a little exaggerated, or sometimes varying degrees of untrue. Your skin starts to itch. Your head buzzes. The three of them continue to politely circumvent your rude and weird comments. Why aren’t they stopping you? Why aren’t _you_ stopping you?

 

The subject shifts to how you and Aradia met. “Eridan’s writing a book and he came into the donut shop where I work, for the atmosphere, he said. He came there every day for a few weeks. My coworkers kept texting me things like ‘Oh my god, that famous guy is here again.’”

 

“She pestered me every chance she got,” you add, spearing a potato on the end of your fork. “It was kind of annoying.” What are you saying?

 

“You weren’t annoyed, silly,” she says. But she’s looking at you as if to confirm that.

 

“No, not really. It was kind of cute, how you were all over me.”

 

Her eyebrows twitch together slightly. “I wouldn’t say I was ‘all over you.’ I kept a respectful distance. You could have said something if I was making you uncomfortable.”

 

You continue, “It wasn’t making me uncomfortable, I’m used to having girls all over me.” That’s not true. Aradia is now looking at you, completely bewildered. Sollux’s eyebrows are both hidden by his bangs.

 

Feferi stands up suddenly. “Looks like everyone is about done,” she says stiffly. “I think I’m going to go get dessert.”

 

Sollux immediately goes to stand up. “You need any help?”

 

“Yes, that’s a great idea!” She sounds a little hysterical. You feel a little hysterical. “Eridan, why don’t you come help me? Sollux and Aradia can catch up with each other.” It’s an order. You stand. Sollux sits. Aradia stares at her plate, brows drawn firmly together, smile definitively absent.

 

You get up and follow Feferi into the kitchen. There’s a cheesecake on the counter. There’s nothing for you to help with, but that was obvious. “Eridan, you’re acting really fishy.” Oh, the fish pun thing you used to do. She still does it, apparently.

 

“What? No I’m not.”

 

“Yes you are. Your girlfriend looked like she was about to cry.”

 

“What?” you say again. “She’s fine.”

 

“Are you—?” She stops, her mouth scrunching up the way it does when she has to hold back from saying something on an impulse.

 

“What?” you say for the third time.

 

“Are you trying to impress me or something?” she whispers.

 

“No,” you say. But as soon as she says it, you know that it’s true. That’s the feeling you haven’t been able to place since you bumped into her. This pressure to perform. To fix what was broken. To make right what you wronged. You’ve been trying to show off. You were trying to parade Aradia around in front of Feferi and her boyfriend, and you were trying to make yourself out to be some kind of desirable, benevolent hero. Oh, god.

 

“I think you are.” She’s pushing you now. She used to do this when she was sure she was right and you weren’t being straight with her. It makes you angry.

 

And then you’re shouting. “I’m not, Fef, everythin’s not all about you, okay?” That’s exactly what she said to you more than a year ago. From the look in her eyes, you can tell she knows.

 

Sollux comes running in. “What’s going on? Fef, are you okay?”

 

“I’m fine, Sollux. Eridan, I never said that. You’re being really strange.” She looks so hurt. You can’t stand it, but it doesn’t hold you back.

 

“So I’m strange because I got defensive when you started accusin’ me of doin’ somethin’ I’m definitely not doin’? Why does that feel so familiar?” Oh god, stop shouting, what are you doing? “Oh right because that’s what you always do.”

 

Sollux steps in front of Feferi. “Hey, don’t yell at her!”

 

You ignore him and keep yelling. “You said I was selfish. Well it’s not like you were perfect either, princess. You could have at least been kind when you were rejectin’ me, but you threw your relationship with this asshole in my face, and then you got pissed when I reacted appropriately to it.”

 

Feferi is crying now. Silent tears run down her face. It’s just like before. It’s exactly like before. Why can’t you stop?

 

“It’s time for you to leave,” Sollux says, grabbing your arm. “Fef, go upstairs.”

 

You jerk your arm back and use it to point accusingly at your ex-best friend. “You’re just pissed that I’m happy without you. That I’m in love with someone who isn’t you. Because you knew I loved you all along. You knew and you enjoyed stringing me along.”

 

“You don’t really love me.”

  
Aradia is standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Your jaw feels like it’s bolted. You stare at her. Her face is completely dry, but she looks broken. And furious. She’s mighty, and she crushes your indignity with her presence. You’re small. Miniscule.

 

You snap out of your funk and it all comes down on you. You just recreated the horrible thing that happened a year ago. Except it’s worse now. You ruined dinner. You spat in the face of your former friend’s polite invitation back into her life. You ruined what should have been a happy reunion between her boyfriend and your girlfriend.

 

And Aradia… What have you done to her? The last few months are a bleached-out picture fading from your mind. The happiness you had. The kindness she showed you. She the first person to actively seek your friendship in years. She was more real than any of the fans you had when you were making music. Her attention meant more to you than that of a thousand other girls—of a hundred thousand.

 

You just ruined that.

 

“Eridan, go home. Sollux, I need a ride.”

 

“No problem, AA. Come on, dickweed, get out of my house.”

 

You live up to the name he just called you by shaking off his attempt at grabbing your arm again and storming out. You slam the door to your car and nearly break the key off in the ignition.

 

You manage to make it all the way home before you start crying.

 

XXX

 

For three days you do nothing but lie on your sofa and watch movies. It’s just like before. You fucked up again. This is exactly what you were afraid would happen. But this time it’s definitely, 100% your fault.

 

You feel stupid. All this time you thought you were over Fef, but as soon as she appeared in your life again you were back to how you were before. You wanted to be important to her. You wanted her to want you back. You wanted her to regret cutting you out. You wanted her to apologize to you and say she wanted to be best friends again.

 

You feel angry. You wish you had noticed sooner. You wish you had said no to her invitation. You could have tried to take it slower. Maybe coffee once in a while, just the two of you. You feel like the pressure to behave in front of Sollux as well as Feferi might have contributed to your break down a little. But no, that’s actually just another excuse. It probably wouldn’t have been different, one-on-one.

 

You feel sad. You think that’s pretty self-explanatory.

 

So you do what you did before. Maybe because it’s familiar and you know how to do it. You’re pretty much a master. You loafed around like this for three months after the first time. Maybe now you’ll go for a new record of ‘indefinitely.’

 

There’s loud, violent knocking at your door. “Open up, you piece of shit!”

 

Oh, good, Karkat has heard the news from Sollux or Feferi or both and he’s come to tell you what a worthless waste of a life you are. Too bad for him, you already know. You don’t get up.

 

“I know you’re lying face-down on that stupid $3000 sofa watching Netflix, just like you’ve been doing for the past three days. I know that’s what you plan on doing for the foreseeable future. And like a goddamn knight in shining armor, I’m here to tell you that I won’t fucking stand for you withdrawing into your pathetic little turtle shell. Not again, Eridan, do you hear me? You either open this shitfucking door right now or I will scream everything I have to say through this pathetic, flimsy piece of wood until my vocal cords become sentient and try to commit seppuku, and you should know very well that my vocal cords have excellent stamina!”

 

You are not moved by his words, literally or otherwise. If he wants to scream himself until he either goes hoarse or your neighbors call the police, that’s fine with you. You are the most apathetic. It’s you.

 

“Fine, you have selected Option B: Lie around as useless and unfunny as a punctured whoopee cushion. I’m going to start this by offsetting whatever stupid bullshit you’re thinking about yourself by a big shocking revelation; Feferi doesn’t hate you. She thinks she deserved you lashing out at her because she pushed you away too damn hard. She’s wrong of course, but she wanted you to know that she doesn’t blame you. She said she wished she had handled things differently for both of your sakes. She also said ‘Thanks for being the messenger, Karkat, you’re a good friend.’ Because I am a goddamn excellent friend. You’re both fucking welcome.”

 

She doesn’t hate you? Why does that make you feel so much worse? God, you really are a piece of shit.

 

“For the record, Sollux doesn’t hate you either. He just thinks you’re stupid. And he’s right. You’re being stupid.”

 

This has less of an effect on you. It’s like stabbing a corpse. You’re basically a corpse at this point.

 

“So even though neither of them hates you, you should probably apologize to them at some point. That would make you ascend the rungs of Shitty Personitude from The Guy Who Calls His Mom a Bitch on Christmas in Front of His Grandparents to Orphaned Crying Puppy-Kicker. Which isn’t much, but for an asshole of your magnitude I’d recommend taking it one step at a time. Maybe you can make them a fruit cake and let them chuck it at your head for the next step, I don’t fucking know.

 

“On to the next order of business, and frankly the more important one. Feferi knew how much of a dickhose you could be, and that was a risk she was willing to take, but I’m betting this was news to Aradia. You two idiots were actually _happy_. Do you know how goddamn long it’s been since I’ve seen you actually happy, Eridan? Because it sure as hell wasn’t ten months ago, when you claimed to be over Feferi.

 

“Maybe you were over wanting to be her boyfriend, but I don’t think you were ever over wanting to have her in your life. You were obsessed with her. You fucking _worshipped_ her. Watching you withdraw from her was like watching a devoutly religious person lose all faith in their god and humanity and become a misanthropic atheist.”

 

If you think about it, that’s actually painfully accurate. Karkat must have analyzed your relationship with Feferi more closely than you ever had. It was too hard for you to look at what you used to have. All you ever remembered was the good stuff, and that just made you want to wither up and die because you were so empty without it.

 

But it’s true, what he’s saying. You thought she was flawless. Or maybe you thought the idea of the two of you together was flawless, and when that fell apart, you didn’t have anything left to believe in.

 

“I think what was best about Aradia was that you didn’t idolize her in the same way you idolized Feferi. I mean, yeah, you were being a little bit of a chickenshit when it came to actually getting together with her because big surprise! Vriska cut your nuts off and you’re afraid of trying to connect with people now. But once you did, it seemed like you were on even footing. Maybe because instead of trying for perfection, you were trying to do something for yourself to make yourself happy.”

 

How can Karkat be this insightful? Why hasn’t he shared any of this with you before? If he knows so much, why didn’t he warn you about how badly you were going to screw up?

 

“But if you’re in a relationship with someone, at some point you have to worry about making them happy too. And she’s not fucking happy with you right now, I can guarantee it. You’re going to have to do something big if you want her to forgive you. You’re going to have to pull the biggest goddamn miracle out of your pale, scrawny ass. And she might not forgive you. But you have to try. You can’t give up for three fucking months again. Even if she still hates you after you do whatever you’re going to do for her—because you’re _going_ to try to make it up to her, so help me—you will be able to say that this time you tried. That’s called personal growth, shitwipe.

 

“There, I just did all the heavy brain-lifting for you, so you better get to work on the best goddamn apology the universe has ever seen. It better be so fucking good Jesus himself will, by the miracle of your apology, gain the capacity for multiple orgasms, and will consequently have a quintuple orgasm. Or more. I don’t know what the right way to say ‘eight orgasms’ would be. I’m leaving now. You’re fucking welcome.”

 

You hear footsteps. For one thousandth of a second, you want to get up off the couch and run after him and hug him until he squeaks. The impulse fades imperceptibly quickly, making you question if it ever existed. Probably not, you’re too busy being a sack of shit.

 

Despite your efforts to stew in misery, Karkat’s words penetrate the canvas of your sack to the steamy, smelly core of your being. Even though it makes more sense for you to forget them all and accept your fate as a terrible, eternally lonely person, you remember everything he said.

 

You consider the possibility of apologizing to Aradia.

 

You’ve never been good at apologies. Manners were not emphasized in your household when you were growing up, and you’ve always blamed that for your shortcomings. The reality is probably that you never tried hard enough to be good at them. You didn’t practice very often.

 

You miss her. It’s only been three days and you miss her like it’s been a decade. You miss her because you know right now she’s gone, totally unreachable.

 

But what if you tried to reach her? Of course the thought occurred to you. You have no idea how you would do it. Karkat said it: it would have to be big to get her to forgive you.

 

You don’t have any big ideas. You don’t have any ideas about doing anything. You dread running out of TV shows to not actually pay attention to but stare at while you wait to wither away.

 

But is that really what you dread? Isn’t what you’re really afraid of being alone? Isn’t that the way it’s always been? You weren’t, when you were with her. You weren’t, before you messed everything up. You weren’t before you were.

 

Isn’t that how the cycle goes? You are, and then you aren’t, and then you are again? And it just keeps going, ad infinitum? Do you really have to do anything to try, or will life just happen to you?

 

You could probably live that way. You could be numb and just let people float in and out of your life, knowing they wouldn’t stay for long. Knowing they’d lose interest if you failed to be interested in them.

 

Or you could go after someone who actually captured your interest. You could fix what you broke.

 

You start with a forearm, wedged under you to prop yourself up. Then you roll over. Then you sit up. Then you stand. Then you walk into your room and change out of your pajamas. Then you go to the store and buy a guitar.

 

XXX

 

You’re rusty. It’s understandable, after over a year of not playing. You practice to see if you can even still play, if this is even remotely possible. You remember the chords. That’s A, G, F—oh, F hurts a little. Ow. Hopefully you can write a song without F. At least your fingers mostly retained their elasticity, and you can do most of what you used to be able to do. You could probably do F with a little more practice.

 

Songwriting, however, is something you’ve never done. Therefore you can’t be rusty at it. You can, however, suck. It’s just like a few months ago, when you were trying to write your book. The words wouldn’t come to you. Well, they’re not coming to you now either.

 

But you’re hoping that like writing your book, you will eventually get the hang of this song thing. You only need to get the hang of it once. Although, admittedly, if you wrote Aradia a whole album of apologies/love songs, that might be more impressive than one measly tune. But you knew this would be a challenge for you, so you decided it might be best to start with one.

 

Not that you’re not going to pour your very essence into this song. You’re just not sure how musical your essence is.

 

Technically you have tried before. You tried to help Feferi write songs a few times, and once she had a sort of involuntary workshop for you where she tried to teach you her ways, but you were stubbornly insisting you had no talent for it, and didn’t understand why you had to learn to write songs. She could write the words and you could write the rest, and it was a system that worked. And it did work, so she eventually gave up and let you be stubborn.

 

Now you could kind of use her help, but you’re going to be stubborn in a different way. You’re going to do this all on your own, because you’re sure that makes it more sincere.

  
You may have to go buy more notepads, though, because you’re going through this one with discarded song lyrics awfully quickly.

 

Slowly, you come up with things that don’t suck, or at least suck less than others. You feel like this whole song might on a spectrum of ‘Really Sucks’ to ‘Sucks a Little Bit,’ but you’ll have to make do. You consult thesauruses and rhyming websites heavily. You listen to music the entire time you’re working, but are very careful not to pull from anything you hear, because you tried singing a song someone else wrote for someone you loved once and it didn’t get you anywhere, so you’re not going to do it again.

 

You work all day every day for a week, except for when you remember to eat or use the bathroom or sleep, or when you’re pacing because there’s a chance that helps you think. You don’t leave your house. You strand yourself on an island with little bits of creativity you’re shooting down from the sky with a bow and arrows made out of coconut shells and palm fronds. It’s about as effective as you would guess with a bow and arrows made out of coconut shells and palm fronds.

 

You hope it’ll do.

 

You hope this plan isn’t actually horrible.

 

You hope she forgives you.

 

You hope a lot of things. And for hoping so many things, you don’t have a lot of confidence that you’re hopes will be realized. Maybe that’s why you hope so many things. Because if you hope enough, maybe something will go right.

 

You make progress, steadily, just as you did with your book. You start to dare to have confidence that you can actually do this. You scribble furiously at your pad, tearing pieces off to put them with other pieces, playing with your song like it’s a puzzle.

 

You reach a point where you think you might be happy with the lyrics. And that was always going to be the hardest part. You decide you’ll take a nap for an hour, because you realize you are a little exhausted. First you make yourself a really big sandwich that is composed of stale bread and a lot of cheese, because you really only have cheese, a few slices of ham, a half-sandwich-sized piece of lettuce. One hour turns into three, but you allow it (not that you really have a choice).

 

You pick up your guitar for the first time since purchasing it and tap your fingers against the strings idly, trying to come up with a place to start in your head. You find one, add a few more bars onto it, try it out with your lyrics, and decide to start over. But that’s okay. This is the part of the process you’re used to. It’s all downhill from here.

 

It truly is. You work, possessed with your goal. You play, you sing, you tweak, you play more. You think you get it.

 

All that’s left is to practice. You do. You practice to get good. And then you start to realize, as you get better, that once you’re good enough, you’ll have to perform. That’s what lies at the end of the road. You get nervous. You get stage fright. And not the kind you got before asking her to come over to your house and hang out with your friends. There’s a lot more at stake here now.

 

Before you didn’t have her. You don’t have her now either, but there’s the possibility, slim though it may be, that you might get her back if you win whatever game it is your playing. And if you lose, you’ll have nothing but scars.

 

But as Karkat said, at least you will have tried. You won’t have given up this time. No one will be able to say that you didn’t give it your all, truly, genuinely, maybe for the first time ever in your life. Maybe, even if she doesn’t forgive you, you’ll be able to move forward with that accomplishment under your belt.

 

XXX

 

You reach the point of plateau in your practice where you’re not sure you’re going to get any better if you keep going. You want to, because despite all the pep talks you’ve been giving yourself in your head, you’re afraid. But after a while of pacing, of raiding your cabinets for the last remnants of food (whatever happens after this, you need to get groceries), of briefly flicking on your TV before deciding wow you really do not give a shit about anything happening in the news right now, you decide it’s time. If you pass up this opportunity, you’ll have to wait until next Tuesday, and you think you might expire from stress.

 

You spend another twenty minutes playing with your hair anyway.

 

Even if it all goes horribly, at least you’ll be looking sharp.

 

You reach the donut shop far too quickly for your own liking. You take deep breaths. This stage fright isn’t going away. And you know it won’t. Your hands are shaking. You hope you’ll be able to play. You hope you don’t drop your guitar. You hope your strings don’t snap on you in the middle of the song.

 

You hope a lot of things, and if you hope enough, some of your hopes will have to be realized. The alternative is statistically unlikely.

 

You get out of your car.

 

People stare at you when you walk in. Either because you’ve got a guitar, or because Aradia has told them all to be on the lookout for a huge douchebag.

 

She’s in the back when you walk in, which gives you time to get even more freaked out than you already are. Yay.

 

She comes around to the front within a few seconds (eons), whatever magical sense all the people who work here possess alerting her to the presence of a customer. Except you’re not actually a customer today.

 

Her brisk walk slows the instant she sees that it’s you, and she approaches carefully, standing a foot or so back from the counter. “What are you doing here?” she asks, her voice flat, just like the line of her mouth. Not that you actually expected she would smile for you.

 

You summon the will to keep your voice steady. “I wrote somethin’ for you. It’ll only take four minutes. I only want four minutes, and then I’ll go.”

 

She stares at you. She stares at your guitar. You can feel yourself sweating through your shirt. Great, that’s attractive. “Okay, fine,” she says. “Four minutes.”

 

You’re very aware of people staring. You’re making a scene. You should be used to this. You’ve played in front of way more people before. But of course, none of them meant anything to you.

 

You suck in a deep breath, closing your eyes for just a second. You open them to look at her. You play.

 

“ _I’m not much for writin’ songs_

_But I know we used to get along_

_Right before I went and shot it all to Hell._

_I miss the days when we would be_

_With each other happily_

_I guess the only one I can blame now is myself_

_It used to be that_

_Donut girl_

_Was sittin’ at my table with the_

_Whole world_

_Shinin’ from her eyes_

_I hope there is a way_

_That you could think I’m sincere when I say_

_Donut girl_

_I’m in love with you_

_My motivations were a mystery_

_My reasoning unclear to me_

_In the end I was the last one to know_

_But that’s still no good reason_

_To stop your heart from leavin’_

_I won’t blame you if you do decide to go_

_But if only for right now_

_Donut girl_

_Is sittin’ at my table with the_

_Whole world_

_Shinin’ from her eyes_

_I hope there is a way_

_That you could think I’m sincere when I say_

_Donut girl_

_I’m in love with you_

_It took until I lost you_

_To realize what I had_

_Before you I was lonely_

_But I didn’t know how bad_

_The last thing that I want to say_

_Is I will love you anyway_

_Even if you cannot stand to see my face another day_

_So this may be the last time that_

_Donut girl_

_Is sittin’ at my table with my_

_Whole world_

_Shinin’ from her eyes_

_I know it isn’t easy_

_But I’d like you to believe me_

_I never wanted you to say goodbye_

_I hope there is a way_

_That you could think I’m sincere when I say_

_Donut girl_

_I’m in love with you_ ”

 

Someone starts clapping tentatively but quickly stops when he realizes no one else is. Everyone else, including you, is waiting for her answer, but she doesn’t give one. She’s just looking at you. You can tell she’s biting the inside of her lip, and you’re used to that meaning she doesn’t have anything to say.

 

So you should say something.

 

You step closer to the counter, hoping you can maybe keep this conversation between you and her instead of you and the entire establishment. “Raids—Aradia—” Your mouth is dry. Your tongue is a useless wad of cotton. “I really didn’t know what I was doin’. And I know that’s stupid and it doesn’t matter if I knew it or not, but… If I actually thought about it, and I have, Fef isn’t important to me anymore. Not the way you are. You’re here and you’ve been here and you actually cared about me and that made me feel better than I have in a long, long time. And I regret not being more honest with myself about how I really felt—about everyone—because if I had maybe I could have avoided doin’ and sayin’ all that stupid shit I did and said and I wouldn’t have hurt you like I did. And what I’m tryin’ to say with all this is just that I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I screwed everythin’ up and like I said I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me ever again. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Now that you added that last bit it makes it sound like you’re trying to get her to feel bad for you.

 

“Eri—”

 

“—And I’m not tryin’ to get you to feel bad for me, because I used to do that and it was a shitty thing to do and that just makes people not like you even more. I’m just tryin’ to admit I messed up.” Still not right.

 

“Eridan—”

 

“—I am really shit at apologies, okay? I’m tryin’ to express a lot of things but I think it all comes out insincere and I don’t know how to make it seem like I really mean it.” God, you’re just digging yourself deeper and deeper, aren’t you?

 

“ _Eridan._ ”

 

“—This has got to be the worst apology ever. I’m so sorry, Raids. Really.”

 

“ _Eridan will you please shut up!_ ”

 

You shut up. It’s not like you hadn’t noticed her trying to talk through you, but you kept going because you are some obviously some kind of self-sabotaging douchelord. But now you’re going to be quiet.

 

She gives you a hard stare for a second that makes you feel squirmy. You wriggle your toes in your shoes because that’s the only thing you can do that she won’t notice.

 

“Thank you for writing me a song,” she says.

 

You feel like this isn’t quite the first thing you were expecting to hear from her, but you’ll take it. It’s not a ‘fuck you’ anyway, so that’s good.

 

“You’re welcome,” you say quietly, forcing yourself to limit it to just that.

 

“And thank you for apologizing.”

 

This time you just nod. Are apologies usually supposed to end with the other person thanking you? This is weird.

 

She starts to cross her arms, then stops, perhaps thinking it will be too hostile, and goes for clasping her hands together in front of her instead. “I think that’s all I have to say right now.”

 

The buoy of confidence you had gained from her polite reception promptly sinks. The patrons are whispering to each other. You have to quell several knee-jerk responses from yourself that could get you in more trouble. “I’m not sure what that means,” you say as un-accusingly as possible.

 

She smiles briefly, a little bit of sunshine in your otherwise cloudy sky. “I’m not totally sure either. I think I forgive you, but I don’t know what comes after that. I think I probably just need some time to think.”

 

She might forgive you. That’s more generous than you could have hoped for. You don’t know if you quite feel happy, though. Maybe, even though you knew it was impossible, you were hoping to be absolved almost instantly, and you could get back together. But that was too big of a dream. You nod again, slowly.

 

“I do still care about you, Eridan. A lot. I don’t want you to think that I don’t. But maybe it would be good for you to figure out your feelings before we do anything together again.”

 

“Yeah,” you say automatically. There’s a bit of silence.

 

“Hey.” You were staring a little too hard at the donuts. You look up at her again. “I promise this isn’t the end, okay? Just get yourself sorted out.”

 

Despite the temptation not to, you take comfort in her words. It’s not the end… That could mean it’s not the end of your relationship, but what component of it? Romantic or platonic? You can’t help hoping. But for now, you should do as she recommends, and as Karkat recommended, and work out your problems with Feferi, because they’ve honestly been long overdue for some closure.

 

“I’ll see you around, then,” you say, offering what you think manages to be a smile.

 

She nods and smiles kindly back. “Sure.”

 

You leave the donut shop for what you feel is going to be the last time in a long time. But you leave feeling better. Much better. As you drive back to your house, you feel relaxed and peaceful, but also pensive. You kind of thought your work would be over, for better or worse, after that. But you’re realizing that it’s not. You’ve got more to do.

 

It makes sense, if you think about it. You’ve got a year’s worth of feelings to sort through. That could take a while.

 

When you get home, you sit down at the desk you’ve spent most of your week at. You’ve got a couple of sheets of paper left on your pad after all. You take a deep breath, staring between the pale blue lines at the white rectangle that could just as easily be infinite space. You click your pen a few times, tap it on the page.

 

Then, steeling your resolve, you write.

 

_Fef,_

_I feel like there are a lot of things that need to be said. I don’t know if I can manage to say all of them, but I’ll do my best to put down as many as I can._

_One of those things is obviously an apology. You’ve probably heard as many of those from me over the years as you can count on two hands. I’ve always made excuses for not giving them, and you dealt with that as long as any normal person could. I thought that after what happened, I was the one who deserved one from you, but even if I do, you definitely deserve one from me as well. You put up with me longer than anyone else ever did. Thanks for that._

_I remember everything you said that day and the truth is you were right. I’m not so good at introspection so I don’t know if it had always been the case, but when I think back to recent years I was always putting myself before you. But I was passing it off as the other way around. I thought I was trying to make you happy, but really I just wanted you to love me like I loved you. I was being selfish._

_I’m sorry for that._

_I want you to know that I don’t love you that way anymore. I don’t want you to be afraid that I do. I don’t want whatever scraps of a relationship we have left to have that kind of pressure on them. I feel like the best way that describes how I feel about you now is that you’re like my sister. I don’t think I’m capable of not loving you, after everything that’s happened between us. Or in spite of it. I consider you my family._

_I’m sorry for the things I said at dinner, too. I think part of that was me not knowing my own feelings well enough to be around you yet. I’m not going to run away from whatever’s inside of me anymore, though. So hopefully I can work on that._

_Please tell Sol I’m sorry for acting like a dick to him too._

_Sincerely,_

_Eridan_

 

XXX

 

It turns out apologizing is very freeing. A week after you sent the letter to Feferi, you got a reply back. She was appreciative and impressed, and kind and understanding, just like she always had been. She said she hoped you would be able to be friends again, but she was willing to give you as much time and space as you needed before that could happen.

 

That was three months ago. Since then, you’ve managed to interact with her on multiple occasions like a normal human being without it devolving into screaming fights, or even fights at a regular volume. Which is to say, you haven’t fought at all. You’ve taken it slowly, and carefully, to be sure not to upset either of you. You’re both fragile when it comes to each other, but you’re getting better and stronger. You’re past the point where a gentle breeze will break you.

 

You even get along decently with her boyfriend. He helped you speed up your computer a few weeks ago, in exchange for a donut your girlfriend gave you. You’ve had enough donuts in the last few months to last you for a while. Now whenever you go into the shop, you only order coffee, even though that’s kind of weird. The Donut Girl doesn’t mind.

 

You gave yourself the space she recommended. You got well on your way to fixing things with Feferi, and then you called Aradia and asked her if she’d go to lunch with you. She said yes.

 

You told her everything. Before, you wouldn’t have known there were things to tell, but that was back when you were repressing all your feelings because they were too painful or complicated for you to confront directly. You talked about your relationship with Feferi; how it was in the past, and how it had changed. And Aradia listened. When you were done, she said she was happy for you. Happy for all the reconciling you had done.

 

And she asked you if you’d like to maybe go on a date sometime.

 

You of course said ‘yes.’

 

That began phase two of your relationship. It was a lot like phase one, only better. Healthier. You’re healthier now.

 

You work on your book regularly; you’re still committed to it, but not for the same reasons as before. You go on dates with your girlfriend. You see your friends—Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, Rose, and Feferi and Sollux. You’ve started playing music again, for the sake of playing music, not as a solution to loneliness. It turns out Aradia is actually pretty good at writing songs. You work on them together, sing them together. You put them on YouTube. You have 243 subscribers. Some of them are you old fans. Some of them are new.

 

You’ve been teaching her how to play guitar. She tells you things she learns in her classes, interesting things about ancient civilizations on other continents that she hopes to visit one day. You’re thinking of planning a surprise trip to some of these places after her graduation in June. You’ve been taking secret notes on the things she tells you and you’ll pick out the ones that seem to be her favorites.

 

Peru is definitely on the list. You’ve discreetly taken up an interest in learning Spanish. She thinks it’s because you want to be more well-rounded. That’s partially true. She’s been taking it for years, and you speak to each other in Spanish sometimes, when the mood strikes you. That’s usually when other moods strike you as well. You’ve always thought foreign languages were sexy. She seems to share the sentiment.

 

Life overall is really good. A year and a half ago, you thought everything that happened from then on would be a steep struggle uphill. It was, for a while. And then it was just floating through vacant space, or fog. But you’ve regained your footing and are walking across even ground. And every day is a happy compliment to the last.


End file.
